‘We want to be absolutely pivotal to a small number of very material people.’ So says Giles Pascoe, the leader of one of Goldman Sachs’ largest UK private wealth teams in London – what he describes as a ‘boutique’ within the firm. Likening his role to that of a personal CIO, Pascoe says: ‘What we do here is institutional quality investment planning and implementation. That’s 90 per cent of the job for clients.’
The bank’s brokerage account helps clients manage other risks, such as currency. ‘All very wealthy people should be, and typically are, very mindful of currency,’ Pascoe tells Spear’s, noting also that the bank’s in-house private equity funds are a ‘really important part of our client offering’. ‘Companies are staying private for longer.
If you’re not invested in private markets you’re missing out on a large chunk of the US economy and growth.’ Pascoe explains that Goldman’s private wealth division handles assets of $70 billion for just over 2,000 clients across EMEA: ‘There’s about 90 of me, so we average about 25 clients,’ he adds. ‘That is necessary because we are only dealing with the very tip of the wealth management pyramid. We deal with a small number of very complicated clients. There is nothing retail about what we do.’